Team

PoSSUM Board of Advisors

Astronaut (ret) Nicole Stott

Nicole Stott is a veteran astronaut with two spaceflights and 104 days living and working in space on both the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station (ISS); including 3 Space Shuttle missions (STS128, STS129, STS133), ISS Expeditions 20 & 21, and one spacewalk. more

Astronaut (Ret.) Winston Scott

A former NASA astronaut, Captain Winston Scott served as a mission specialist on STS-72 in 1996 and STS-87 in 1997, and has logged a total of 24 days, 14 hours and 34 minutes in space, including 3 spacewalks totaling 19 hours and 26 minutes.more

Dr. Waleed Abdalati

Dr. Waleed Abdalati is the director of the University of Colorado’s Earth Science and Observation Center, formerly appointed NASA chief scientist, serving as the principal adviser to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden on NASA science programs. more

Cosmonaut Ronnie Nader

Commander Ronnie Nader Bello founded the ‘Ecuador al Espacio’ Project, a privately funded astronautics initiative, to start the Ecuadorian Civilian Space Program. In 2007, Ronnie Nader completed the 16-month training program designed at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center on Moscow, Russia. more

Astronaut Yvonne Cagle

Dr. Yvone Cagle holds a Ph.D. in medicine from the University of Washington and is qualified for flight assignment as a NASA mission specialist. She is currently assigned as the lead ARC Astronaut Science Liaison and Strategic Relationships Manager for Google and other Silicon Valley Programmatic Partnerships. more

Dr. Sean Casey

Sean Casey is a co-founder of the Silicon Valley Space Center (SVSC). The SVSC integrates the innovative and entrepreneurial practices of Silicon Valley into the burgeoning NewSpace industry. This includes the Valley’s practices for business acceleration, incubation, and angel level funding. more

PoSSUM Executive Team

Dr. Jason Reimuller

Dr. Jason Reimuller is the Executive Director of Project PoSSUM and also serves as Co-I of the PMC-Turbo experiment and the PoSSUM Bioastronautics Program. A commercial research pilot and spacecraft system engineer, Jason served for six years for NASA’s Constellation Program. more

Dr. Dave Fritts

Dr. Dave Fritts is PoSSUM’s Chief Scientist and has worked in a number of areas of atmospheric dynamics extending from the stable boundary layer (SBL) into the thermosphere, acquiring broad experience with theoretical, modeling, and experimental activities. more

Dr. Gary Thomas

Professor Gary Thomas has been involved in noctilucent cloud research since 1981, when they were detected by the Ultraviolet Spectrometer on the SME spacecraft. Since then he has authored or co‐authored over 80 papers on noctilucent clouds and related subjects. more

Pete Freeland

Pete Freeland is the director of the PoSSUM Mission Readiness Program, leading logistical and spaceport operational planning. Pete is a former US Air Force high-altitude pilot and is currently working as a commercial space program manager and an actor.

Blake Keller

Blake Keller is the director of the PoSSUM Technology Program and is also the Executive Director of Engineering for a rapidly-growing medical device manufacturer. In this capacity, he oversees new product development and manufacturing engineering.

Todd Kohorst

Todd Kohorst is the director of PoSSUM’s Education Program. Todd a 6th grade physical science teacher from Farmington, Minnesota. This is Kohorst’s eighth year teaching overall, and he has taught all science subjects in grades 6, 7, 8, and 9 in his teaching career.

Dr. Jancy McPhee

Dr. Jancy McPhee leads PoSSUM’s Sci-Arts program. Previous, she was a cellular and molecular neuroscience researcher for 17 years before joining the Universities Space Research Association to manage various aspects of NASA’s domestic and international space life sciences research programs.

PoSSUM Science and Instrumentation Team

Dr. Franz-Josef Luebken

Dr. Franz-Josef Lubken received his PhD in Physics at the Physikalisches Institut der Universitat in Bonn where he studied sounding rocket mass spectroscopy and more

Dr. John Plane

Professor John Plane is professor of atmospheric chemistry at the University of Leeds. His primary research interest is the aeronomy of the mesosphere and lower thermosphere region. more

Dr. Gerald Lehmacher

Dr. Gerald Lehmacher serves as faculty in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Clemson University, working primarily on upper atmospheric turbulence using sounding rockets and the giant Jicamarca radar array in Peru and has worked with the Galileo Jupiter Probe mission. more

Dr. Jeff Thayer

Dr. Jeff Thayer is a Professor of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Colorado. Jeff specializes in geophysical fluid dynamics, gas and plasma interactions, thermodynamics, and electrodynamics applied to the upper atmosphere and geospace. more

Dr. Mike Taylor

Dr. Michael Taylor is a specialist in optical remote sensing measurements of atmospheric optical emissions at the Center for Atmospheric and Space Sciences at Utah State University, where he studies the airglow emissions to investigate upper-atmospheric dynamics and temperature structure. more

Dr. Amal Chandra

Dr. Amal Chandran is a Research Scientist with the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks. Amal is also a visiting scientist at the Atmospheric Chemistry Division at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder since 2010. more

Dr. Zoltan Sternovsky

Dr. Zoltan Sternovsky is an assistant professor of Aerospace Engineering Sciences at the University of Colorado in Boulder, Colorado, and a research scientist at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, focusing on aerosols and dusty plasmas. more

PoSSUM Scientist-Astronaut Instructors

Ken Trujillo

Mr. Ken Trujillo brings over 20 years of experience in EVA and crew systems engineering as a project engineer in support of Space Shuttle, International Space Station, and Orion mission operations and training in EVA and Crew System disciplines. more

Patty Wagstaff

Patty Wagstaff is a six-time member of the US Aerobatic Team and has won the gold, silver and bronze medals in Olympic-level international aerobatic competition and is the first woman to win the title of US National Aerobatic champion and one of the few people to win it three times. more

Nikolay Moiseev

Mr. Nikolay Moiseev was trained at the Moscow Aviation Institute, and has since worked at Zvezda, Russia’s space suit provider, for 20 years. Mr. Moiseev’s suit designs have flown on Mir, Buran, and ISS with both the ESA and NASA on advanced EVA designs. more

Dr. Erik Seedhouse

Dr. Erik Seedhouse is an aerospace/life sciences scientist and Assistant Professor in the Applied Aviation Sciences Department at ERAU, where he teaches life support systems in the Space Studies Program and also works as a manned spaceflight consultant and author. more

Van Wampler

Mr. Van Wampler holds an BFA in cinematography and founded CinemaRaven in 2011, a cinematography company specializing in cinematography using RED Camera system, the same ones that are integral to the PoSSUMCam system. Van is also a certified PoSSUM spacesuit technician. more

Chris Lundeen

Mr. Chris Lundeen serves as program coordinator for Project PoSSUM’s educational programs. Chris is a certified spacesuit technician and is also certified as a simulator technician and pilot for PoSSUM’s simulation facilities. more